Naval software turns into an open source project management tool

LibrePlan, formerly known as NavalPlan, was developed as a tool for the shipbuilding sector. The software’s first version was published in 2009. It was funded by a Galician foundation dependent of the Ministry of Industry of Xunta de Galicia. The project however turned into generic open source project management software in late 2011.

The developers aimed at creating an open source planning tool for the Galician regional naval auxiliary sector. It was made for the companies in the region that needed to plan, monitor and control their projects. After the first release of the software was made public, its creators realised the software was more generic and that it could be used by other sectors than the naval industry. The decision was made in 2010 to turn the project into a project planning software for all sectors.

The software’s developers describe it as a “collaborative tool to plan, monitor and control projects, which has a rich web interface that provides a desktop-like user experience. All the team members can take part in the planning and it makes possible to have a real-time planning.”

LibrePlan’s developers expect to release next version, LibrePlan 1.3, this summer. The software is currently available in English, Galician, French, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish. It is distributed under GNU Affero General Public License, version 3.